Ice Cold Killers: The Series
Created | Updated May 23, 2010
It is a disappointing time of year for those of us who live in the US, possess more than two brain cells, and occasionally watch television. They're cancelling all our favourite programmes.
Next year's line-up will no doubt feature more celebrities dancing on their two left feet, "reality" – which, like TS Eliot, we cannot stand much more of – and more of those well-muscled gentlemen in tights pretending to do one another a mischief in the wrestling ring, while guests as illustrious (and as elderly) as the retired astronaut Buzz Aldrin play host. So be it. I may finally break down and buy myself an ebook reader.
The news is just in that FlashForward, the thinking person's mind candy, will be cancelled. This means that we will never find out who is behind the Illuminati-style conspiracy to test the theories of Stephen Hawking using the entire planet Earth as guinea pigs. (Apparently, American audiences were "bored" by discussions of free-will versus determinism in prime time. Gaah! I despise these people!) I am devastated – each week, I come up with a new theory as to how consciousness could interact with space/time and...well, all of us in the astrally-minded lunatic fringe are going to boycott their soap operas. All 13 of us. So there.
The really sad news for millions of viewers is that the Law and Order franchise is scuttling the mother ship after 20 years of programming. The filming of L&O, as the police/legal procedural is affectionately known, has been a fixture in New York City for so long that two of its cast members, Sam Waterston and the late Jerry Orbach, were declared living monuments by the city. Even the mayor has been on the show.
In these days of satellite television, L&O has been so influential that German citizens have been known to demand their Miranda rights. I suppose the next season of Tatort should really explain the Code Napoleon. Dull, but instructive.
All is not lost: the L&O franchise will continue with Law & Order: SVU – no, not "SUV". It's about the Special Victims Unit, meaning sex crimes. They are apparently planning to do one set in horrible Los Angeles, but only the television people will watch that. The rest of us find that city unphotogenic, and all the people plastic. We are only interested in Los Angeles if it is about to fall into the ocean. I, on the other hand, have a great idea for a new L&O...wait for it...
Law & Order: Ice Cold Cases.
This series will combine the appeal of Cold Case, a series allegedly set in Philadelphia (but not filmed there, as the rotters find the City of Brotherly Love too old and messy to shoot in), in which police officials solve cases that are so old, sometimes there isn't even any DNA on record, with the jollier camaraderie we have come to expect from New York's finest1. In keeping with the latest trends toward autopsy scenes – with accompanying gruesome humour – as well as inside-the-body shots of bullets doing wince-worthy damage to vital organs, the show will feature state-of-the-art forensic footage, and a crack team of 18-year-old males will be assembled to make certain the coroner's mots please the six-pack set.
The real award-winning gimmick, though, will be that the cops of Interpol Precinct 42 will have a time machine.
The Precinct 42 boys and girls will sport cool leather jackets, heavy hardware, cell phones/GPS/Global Space-Time Positioning, and sally forth into the distant past to solve crimes that are so old that DNA hasn't even been invented yet. (Possible tie-ins with the BBC's Doctor Who have already sprung to mind – perhaps they could lease a Tardis from The Doctor? They could get Gina Bellman to play the inevitable Brit liaison, with subtitles for the terminally un-hip.)
What kinds of cases could they solve? Obviously, the more gruesome and mysterious, the better. Obviously, the more exotic the locale, the better. Obviously someplace with scenery, hot babes, cold corpses, and an opportunity for wise-cracking and pontificating. I suggest they start with the Case of Sawney Bean. The Bean Case has everything – cannibalism, incest, gore, scenery, and hot Scottish babes.
Sawney Bean is a natural for this kind of show. We have to take that amazing Pittsburgher, Jeff Goldblum – he not only has bizarre appeal, he has sci-fi chops from such classics as The Fly and Independence Day. We need Ice-T, aka Finn Tutuola, because he is cooler than cool and can rap his way through 16th-Century Scotland. Besides, he's the only L&O actor whose accent is more stand-out than Glaswegian. He'll put the "ice" in "ice cold". (See? Thinking of taglines already.)
Of course we have to take Mariska Hargitay, aka Olivia Benson, and her redoubtable sidekick Elliot Stabler, played by that handsome dude Christopher Meloni. Olivia can sympathise with the women in the Bean Cult – tell them they've been brainwashed. Explain what brainwashing is. Try that again, and then offer them counselling, reminding them that they need to be self-actualising. Meanwhile, Stabler can beat Bean to within an inch of his life and call him a "dietetically-challenged scumbag". Tutuola can go undercover in Edinburgh's mean streets and connect with the youth crowd, who are probably busy cattle-drove-spotting. More subtitles will be needed.
Gina Bellman, as British liaison, could go argue with King James about something or other – more subtitles – while the forensics team got busy analysing the cooking apparatus in the cave. Gruesome finds will lead to hilarious quips by the white-coat brigade.
As you can see, this formula is a sure-fire way to extend the L&O franchise. Future episodes could include Goldblum out-cooling Giles de Rais while the Team uncover the grisly secrets of Bluebeard, Benson and Stabler using a state-of-the-art translation device to interrogate the evil Hungarian countess, Elizabeth Bathory, and an international effort with la Bellman to figure out just exactly who really killed the princes in the Tower. The possibilities are endless. The location shots are potentially fabulous – who in mediaeval Europe wouldn't want a film crew on their doorstep? The extras would probably work for beer and cheese.
Now that I have solved the problem of what we're going to watch next season, I can go on to greater things...such as figuring out which ebook reader best suits my needs...
See you in the funny papers.
Fact and Fiction by Dmitri Gheorgheni Archive
